Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japanese name: Super Mario USA) is the second game in the Mario series. It originally was for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but has several remakes for many other systems. This game has been criticized for being too much a departure from its predecessor, Super Mario Bros. It also has a prototype version.

Contents

Story

The storyline is taken directly from the manual for the game:

One evening, Mario had a strange dream. He dreamt of a long, long stairway leading up to a door. As soon as the door opened, he was confronted with a world he had never seen before, spreading out as far as his eyes could see. When he strained his ears to listen, he heard a faint voice saying "Welcome to 'Subcon', the land of dreams. We have been cursed by Wart and we are completely under his evil spell. We have been awaiting your arrival. Please defeat Wart and return Subcon to its natural state. The curse Wart has put on you in the real world will not have any effect upon you here. Remember, Wart hates vegetables. Please help us!" At the same time this was heard, a bolt of lightning flashed before Mario's eyes. Stunned, Mario lost his footing and tumbled upside down. He awoke with a start to find himself sitting up in his bed. To clear his head, Mario talked to Luigi, Toad and Princess about the strange dream he had. They decide to go to a nearby mountain for a picnic. After arriving at the picnic area and looking at the scenery, they see a small cave nearby. When they enter this cave, to their great surprise, there's a stairway leading up, up and up. It is exactly like the one Mario saw in his dream. They all walk together up the stairs and at the top, find a door just like the one in Mario's dream. When Mario and his friends, in fear, open the door, to their surprise, the world that he saw in his dream spreads out before them!...

In the end, Mario and his friends trounce Wart and open a room containing one of Subcon's characteristic vases. After pulling a stubborn cork from the mouth of the vase, eight red fairies spring out. The four heroes are lauded for defeating Wart, whose beaten body is passed over the crowd and tossed aside. Immediately after, the screen shows Mario sleeping, indicating that the entire adventure had been a dream.

The Princess does not excel in speed or power, with a two for both statistics. Her jump, though, is only a three. To make up for these average statistics, Peach has the ability to float in the air for one and a half seconds, making her jumping skill having an advantage in a horizontal way.

Comparison with Doki Doki Panic

Most of the other differences between Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic and Super Mario Bros. 2 are small graphical changes, such as animation being added to the POW Blocks, bomb fuses, cherries and vegetables for the localized version, mushrooms replacing hearts as health boosters, and the characters shrinking when reduced to only one unit of health. The save feature was also taken out of the NES version of Super Mario Bros. 2, due to the limitations of the Nintendo Entertainment System compared to the Famicom Disk System (battery-backup was also very expensive). It was restored in the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 2.

Main character switches:

Mario → Imajin, the fearless son.

Luigi → Mama, the mother.

Toad → Papa, the father.

Princess → Lina, the little sister.

All abilities of the characters remain the same.

Other changes include:

In Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, one must beat the entire game once with each character to tally up to four times to view the ending.

In Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, the player cannot change characters until he/she defeats an end boss of a chapter. Even if the player warps to a new chapter, he/she still has the character until an end boss is defeated.

In the manual that comes with the original NES cartridge for Super Mario Bros. 2, Phanto (the head that chases the player's character around when holding a key) looks a little different. Nintendo inadvertently placed a screenshot of its appearance in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. Originally, he was a passive, expressionless mask, whereas in Super Mario Bros. 2, he has slanted eyes with an evil, mischievous grin.

Furthermore, Phanto begins its pursuit only after the player leaves Phanto's chamber, unlike Super Mario Bros. 2, in which it chases the player when he/she retrieves the key from the chamber. The "shuddering to life" sound and animation is unique to Super Mario Bros. 2

Waterfalls, especially the enormous one in World 3-1, are more speedy in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic.

Extra lives were originally representations of the character's face; 1-up Mushroom are a feature specific to the Mario series. The traditional "1-up sound" was originally the short tune played when you pick up a crystal ball or earn an extra life playing the slot machine.

The large hawk head at level entrances and exits was originally a large African tribal mask.

The mushroom blocks were originally small tribal masks which closely resembled the painted faces of the band members of Kiss.

The character select and overworld music is much shorter in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. Super Mario Bros. 2 has a new section added to where the music would originally loop.

Invincibility and sub-space music is different, and there are some minor differences in other songs (the Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic songs give an Arabian feel).

Most sounds featured in Super Mario Bros. 2 use the Nintendo Entertainment System's synthesizer, and a number of PCM audio samples, rather than the Famicom Disk System's synthesizer, which is used prominently in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. The changed audio includes the sound effects for picking up and throwing objects, grabbing hearts, receiving damage, defeating enemies, bombs exploding, the ticking of the stop watch, damaging a boss, Birdo, shooting eggs, and the rocket. In Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, the sound effects were mainly a combination of synthesized beeps, tones, and screeches.

The potions were originally Arabian lamps. The unused sprites for the lamp were not completely removed during the conversion and can be found in the data located within the cartridge of Super Mario Bros. 2.

In Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, the boss of World 5-3 is the third Mouser who is albino colored. The albino Mouser needs seven hits for defeat. In Super Mario Bros. 2, the boss is replaced by the rock throwing crab Clawgrip. During the credit sequence after the game is beaten, Clawgrip is listed as Clawglip. Likewise, the names of both Birdo and Ostro are accidentally switched. They are also switched in the manual.

The Albatoss's animation has seven frames, in comparison to the two in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic.

The slot machine mini-game is the same in both versions, but has a green background in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, as opposed to the title screen variant in Super Mario Bros. 2.

The shell used in Super Mario Bros. 2 to kill enemies was a decapitated head in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic.

Wart is defeated by six hits rather than seven.

One of the vegetables in World 3-1 is different. In Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, there is a long, slender grouchy vegetable, while on Super Mario Bros. 2, it was a heart shaped feminine vegetable.

Birdo has more color variations on Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, including green and grey.

Development

The original Super Mario Bros. 2 was released in Japan, but various Nintendo of America employees personally disliked the game, on which they found to be frustratingly difficult and looked too much like its predecessor, so it was not released in North America or Europe. However, Nintendo was already working on Super Mario Bros. 3 and they had not released a Super Mario Bros. 2 in North America or Europe yet. They needed to make a game which was quick to make, so they took Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, replaced all the playable characters with Mario characters, along with some minor changes to suit the international audience and the Mario series and called it Super Mario Bros. 2. Super Mario Bros. 2 was eventually released in Japan for the Famicom in 1992.

Gallery

Trivia

The box art for this game changed the emphasis from the original Super Mario Bros. game. In the original game, the words "Mario Bros." were bigger than the word "Super," but with this game, the words "Super Mario" became bigger than the word "Bros." However, in the title screen of the game itself, the same text is used as the original game.

Some of the remakes, such as Super Mario Advance, went by the name Peach instead of her original English name, Princess Toadstool.

The end credits contained some errors, such as Birdo mistakenly being labeled as "Ostro" (and vice versa), Hoopster was mistakenly labeled as "Hoopstar," Tryclyde's name was misspelled as "Triclyde," and Clawgrip's name was misspelled as "Clawglip." These errors remained unchanged in Super Mario All-Stars, but were fixed in Super Mario Advance.

Coincidentally, Mama in Doki Doki Panic was replaced by Luigi in Super Mario Bros. 2, and the very last episode of the Super Mario World cartoon series is named "Mama Luigi."